It was hard to miss: all over the internet and social media the past two weeks, so-called UFOs. If you did miss it: a former Pentagon intelligence officer named David Grusch came forth with his attorney, also ex-military, to claim the United States has crashed-and-recovered extraterrestrial craft in its possession, and long has been trying to “back-engineer” them — replicate the way they “fly” or otherwise function.

We long have warned that in at least many cases of such reports, if not the majority, there is a spiritual component (when a sighting is legitimate and not a meteorite to begin with). For certain: there have been many credible witnesses in recent times, including astronauts and two past U.S. presidents, while the Vatican astronomer has issued statements welcoming the idea of aliens.

We’re not sure how welcoming we should be: Too many such phenomena are not only ephemeral, flitting, and spirit-like, but have been near cemeteries, occult spots, or Indian burial mounds. The words from Scripture resound: “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect [Matthew 24:24].

Or Our Lady of LaSalette (1846): “May the Pope guard against the performers of miracles. For the time has come when the most astonishing wonders will take place on the earth and in the air.”

“Everywhere,” she said, “there will be extraordinary wonders.” Such spirits, warned Mary, “will have great power over Nature.”

There is that, yet it must be noted in addition to the sheer number of galaxies, stars, and thus planets out there is the beguiling fact that in recent decades, reports have arrived not just of luminosities in the sky (often similar to what Indians called spirit lights, and what occultists call “orbs”), but crashed extraterrestrial craft, sometimes with dead “aliens” aboard or flung nearby [Picture at left is simulation.]

The list intrigues:

1933: Magenta, Italy. That’s the Lombardy region: a supposed incident during the rule of Fascist Benito Mussolini, who — like other governments — supposedly went to great lengths suppressing witnesses and classifying information, forming a secretive organization to study it, the “Gabinetto RS/33,” headed by renowned inventor Guglielmo Marconi. Two “giant” beings were said to have been found (see Genesis 3) and the craft taken into U.S. possession in 1944 or 1945 through the help of Pope Pius XII, according to the military whistleblower Grusch.

1941: A crash near the airport south of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where a classic saucer-shaped vehicle was on fire, with several aliens (the diminutive, bulgy-eyed gray types) dead or dying. The case first came to light when a grandchild of a local Baptist minister, Reverend William Guy Huffman of Red Star Church, who had been called by police or firemen to conduct last rites at the scene (it was initially thought to be a small conventional aircraft), described what her grandfather had told his wife and two sons. The event allegedly occurred on Holy Saturday and military shortly arrived, chasing away witnesses and threatening prosecution of anyone who spoke of it.

1945. A crashed UFO was supposedly found near the Trinity Site at White Sands Missile Test Range, an avocado-shaped craft about thirty feet long, discovered first by two young boys, Jose Padilla and Reme Baca, and later witnessed by others who claimed military vehicles, including trucks, low-boy trailer, tarp, a crane, and even a bulldozer, all but immediately arrived and hauled off both the craft and two dead or dying occupants. This was one of at least seven alleged crashes in New Mexico and predates the famous Roswell crash, leading some to believe it was part of the same event. (Again there were threats to witnesses.)

— 1947. On the morning of July 2, 1947, Gerald Anderson, his father, brother, uncle, and cousin went from Albuquerque to the Plains of San Augustin (named after the saint). While looking for moss agate, the Anderson family came upon a 32-foot crashed UFO. Gerald claimed there were four aliens — one live, one wounded, and two dead. Once more, the military rushed in, again with trucks, this time a flatbed, a tanker, and tarps, in time-honored fashion treating witnesses harshly.

— 1947. The same week and possibly the same day as the “crash” on the Plains of San Augustin, the world-famous “Roswell” incident about a hundred miles away occurred. Dozens claimed to have seen UFO debris and/or alien bodies near Corona, New Mexico. It was on a ranch about fifty miles from the town of Roswell, from whence came its name. And yes: urgent Air Force recovery.

— 1948. A supposed crash and military recovery in March of that year in Hart Canyon about nine miles north of Aztec, New Mexico — a state densely populated by military installations. In fact, White Sands is where the first atomic bomb was tested, and Los Alamos, where the bomb was invented, is to the south of Aztec.

— 1965. Kecksburgh, Pennsylvania, about thirty miles southwest of Pittsburgh, a craft supposedly was recovered from a small lake after a blazing fireball was seen by witnesses in six states and Ontario. The military blanketed the area, took the debris to the local Air Force base, and announced that it had found nothing, and that the light in the sky had simply been a meteor. [At right, artist’s rendering]

— 1987. A UFO supposedly crashed in Russia on a hill overlooking Dal’ Negorsky. Strange metal fragments allegedly were found and analyzed. Other such incidents were also alleged in that nation, with similar police or military involvement.

1989, in a swamp near Carp, Ontario: a supposed video of a retrieved UFO occupant. The CBC investigated and said, “A supposedly declassified document from Canada’s Department of National Defence described a scene torn from a sci-fi actioner, with troops scrambling to retrieve spaceship wreckage and alien corpses being squirreled away to underground research facilities at the University of Ottawa. It all would have been easily dismissed but for one reason: the documents and photos were accompanied by a VHS tape of the supposed UFO. They were distributed by a mysterious individual self-identifying as ‘Guardian.’ We didn’t find any answers but are convinced residents saw something mysterious.”

— 1996. Varginha, Brazil, January 20. Three girls allegedly spotted an alien-like creature and others claimed to have seen a UFO crash into the woods, with of course a military vehicle swooping in — Brazilian and soon U.S. Military sources and others claimed to have seen the recovered craft or alien beings, which were brought under secrecy to a hospital. A U.S. medical doctor wrote a book about the supposed event. One military man succumbed to a strange illness afterward. The girls’ first impression was that they had encountered a demon.

Hoaxes? Simple legends? We cover such things in more detail in our “Special Reports.” For now file it all in a “suspense account.”

[resources: “Special Reports“]

[See short clip below when we visited there; later today.]